"This perfect recycling tended to present itself, in the narcosis of the event, as a model for the rest: like American political life itself, and like the printed and transmitted images on which that life depended, this was a world with no half-life.” —Joan Didion, “Political Fictions”
I rang in the New Year at a bar next to a 7-Eleven. It’s the bar where Publix grocery managers drink beers standing up and tell the leather-skinned bartender that they’re “OK.” These men wear straps on their sunglasses. They peel bumper stickers onto their Dodge vehicles, step back and say, I imagine, “Yep.” At heel, they drank Budweiser and stared at Fox News’ New Year, stubble bathed by the bluish glow of the Trumps. They’re dreamers, dreaming of a great America that never was. So are Rubio supporters, dreaming of a new American century in the ashes of the last one. All the while, Cruz supporters dream of a Texas-turned-holy land, and Kasich supporters dream of a Kasich nomination.
Dreams can be the fuel of progress or the fuel of destruction. With the news reduced to the screen of an iPhone and the informative media lost in the quicksands of social media, the political climate is so pervasive as to lose all meaning. Naive as lambs before the slaughter, we speak of candidates as if we know them: We “love,” we “hate,” we’ve “got a feeling.”
And you can’t fight feelings with facts. We live in the mythical time of the story. We live in the post-Obama apocalypse, blinded by a bonfire of practicalities. The personal is political, and the political is personal — disastrously so. This election is not about strategy. In the 10th Republican debate, Wolf Blitzer begged, “I want to move on, these are the rules. We’re moving on… I want to talk about ISIS right now,” as Trump, Rubio and Cruz screamed over each other. Who cares about ISIS? This election is about dazzling images: Trump’s penis, Rubio’s boots and Cruz’s creepiness.
It is not surprising that Trump is racist and sexist. Trump hates women and foreigners; so does the GOP. Trump flaunts his penis and hot wife; George W. Bush played cowboy all the way into Iraq. What is surprising is Trump's openness about it and how Americans lap it up, don foreign-made “Make America Great Again” caps and wander into the flames of tomorrow.
Poke Trump and he deflates; same goes for Rubio. In the apotheosis of the image, his handsome face is a black hole that absorbs all meaning. Rubio is the banality of evil, the robotic inevitability of the reactionary right. Rubio, our sexy, young Gator-candidate, the supposed mainstream candidate, is against abortion even in cases of rape and incest. He has said the U.S. does not need a federal Department of Education, nor does he believe the Federal Reserve should have a monetary policy.
And what to say about Ted Cruz? That for millennials obsessed with going all the way and adults obsessed with authenticity, perhaps he’s the right candidate: ready to shut down the government rather than give an inch. Apocalyptic, passionate and staunchly against the separation of church and state — this is what passes for an establishment candidate in 2016.
Yet we progressives aren’t innocent. My Facebook news feed is a snake pit of anti-Hillary propaganda. It is a national, bipartisan obsession to crucify our most prominent female politician. It is a spine-chilling pastime that reaches beyond the clarity of facts into the obscurity of the human soul. It’s not that anti-Hillary Facebookers disagree with her; it’s that they hate her.
Personality plagues our politics. Keep in mind: We’re electing a president, not a spouse. This isn’t about smiles, or boots or even a frivolous, media-controlled idea of trust. We must accept a politics of compromise — call it impurity, call it dirtiness — if we are not to splinter into devil’s blue and devil’s red.
Ann Manov is a UF French, English and Spanish senior. Her column appear on Mondays.
